


After the Veil

by elcasaurus



Series: After the Veil [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Coffee Shop, F/M, Modern Fantasy, Romance, beginning, monster fight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 07:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6071029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elcasaurus/pseuds/elcasaurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first chapter of a modern fantasy novel, After the Veil. </p><p>A secretary is displeased to find she is the reincarnation of an ancient chinese warrior who's fused herself with a half god from the depths of the veil. She'll need the help of an interdimensional alien elf, his immortal russian best friend, and a whole other cast of characters to hold off the ever looming apocalypse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Veil

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be posting chapters, pieces, asides and ideas here, but not the complete work. For that, you'll have to wait until I finish it and publish it, whatever form that takes.

As far as winter evenings go in Buffalo, this one isn't so bad. It's brisk enough that a thin layer of old snow clings to the winter grass, but not yet the deep bone cold that late January will bring. The asphalt shines wet where the ever present salt trucks melted the ice. Cars creep by with the traffic of rush hour. Everyone trudging through the necessary motions on to the next activity with a patient determination, including Elly. 

Five days a week it's a pleasant enough office job. 4:30, drive home. Cook dinner for one. Pack gym bag, walk the mile down the road to the fitness club, this is her warmup. Weights 3 days. Hard cardio classes 2 days. Walk home, this is her cooldown. A steady and set routine. Home for more dinner. Read a book or watch tv. Bed. Repeat Monday through Friday. 

Elly gave a sigh at herself. Jesus. She really needed to join a class or something. Something that did not include a lot of sweat and a firm, polite refusal to make eye contact. She made a mental note to look up some local event or other when she got home. At least, she got about halfway through the thought before she was distracted. 

In Buffalo, it's not entirely unusual to see someone in cargo shorts in the coldest weather. Privately she believed that half the residents of her city are secretly descendants of vikings. But two giant, tattooed, thuggish men glaring at her from up the path in dirty wife beaters, their breath snorting in thick steamy clouds in the chill air, sparked an alarm somewhere in her spine. She paused to assess. They might just let her pass. She might be over reacting. One of them curled his lip in a snarl at her, and she decided she could feel bad about judging books by their cover later, and ducked into a conveniently placed coffee shop. 

Safe. At least for the moment. She groaned deep in her head. The place was packed and there was a line. She was surrounded by people infinitely more cool than she would ever be. Everyone looked calmly fashionable in a way that thoroughly suggested that no one here cared at all about being fashionable. Men and women sported brightly colored purple and green hair, as though finding the sort of job where you can both have purple and green hair and pay rent reliably is an every day thing. She was dead certain that every single hopelessly cool, effortlessly interesting person in here had either written a novel or had just opened their art show. Or both. Or something even cooler. 

Especially this guy behind her. Who has white hair? She rallied in her head. Seriously, white hair past his shoulders pulled back in an easy but undeniably attractive braid, and a head taller than her. I bet he orders a green tea and doesn't believe in gluten. 

"Man, must be a creep parade out there," said tall-ey mc'white hair, shrugging casually towards the door. Elly didn't respond for a moment, assuming naturally that he wasn't talking to her. He softly cleared his throat. 

"Oh! Yeah. I mean, get a jacket." He grinned at her response. Suddenly she was deeply aware of her shabby winter coat stubbornly worn over her gym sweats. Dear god mister white hair green eyes. I need at least a team of stylists and an entire wardrobe update before you talk to me. 

She ordered her excuse to avoid the crew outside, plain coffee with milk and sugar. As she sought out a trendy antique stuffed couch seat, she caught captain green eyes in a perfectly fitted black peacoat order a green tea. She gave herself a private fist pump. 

From her plush velvet perch she glanced out the window, and caught white hair peacoat leaning casually to glance out the window in the same manner, a small, tense frown on his face. His long white fingers curled around his small, steaming paper cup. He caught her eye and smiled broadly. "Can I sit here? I'm Larry." He extended his free hand to shake. She took it, his grip was firm and warm. 

"Elly." 

"Elly! I like it. Is it short for anything?"

Say something witty, a man is talking to you. She shrugged. "Ellena."

"Ellena! That's fancy. I like it. You don't meet too many Ellena's."

"Eh, it's a name."

"It's a good name! It means 'Man's Defender'."

She gave a short snorting giggle, "Man's Defender? Oh my god. My poor parents. They named their kid 'Man's Defender' and wound up with a secretary. How disappointing is that?"

"Oh I don't know! One can defend many things in small ways. For example, maybe you're defending mankind by keeping things filed and organized? Or, maybe you defend people from pissy phone calls?"

She grinned, "I like that. I'm an office hero, saving everyone from doing their own pie charts." 

"Lawrence means 'From Laurentum'. It's a place south of Rome, I guess. My name literally means, "From this particular place". I'm not even from there. It doesn't make any sense."

"How do you even fix that? It's not like you can fulfill some ultimate destiny of being from a town you're not from"

"Right?" He blew softly over his tea, tendrils of the steam curling away with his breath. "It keeps me up at night."

She grinned. "Better than having a fancy name and not doing crap about it. How do you know that anyway? Do you just have a photographic memory of random name meanings?"

He winked, "It's one of my many talents."

Oh? What other talents do you have? No, don't ask that. Elly, a man is talking to you. Flirt With Him. She couldn't quiet meet his gaze, his eyes were too bright and his crooked grin too charming. She looked down at her coffee instead. "Ah, I can't even defend myself against whatever that is outside."

"Yeah, criminal element out and about. I don't like any human with that many neck tattoos. It just screams, 'I make poor life decisions." While she giggled, he leaned aside to check out the window. "I think they're gone though."

She checked herself. The street was, indeed, free from viking thugs in cargo shorts. "I'm gonna jet then. Gym time."

"I know we met about four seconds ago, but do you want an escort?"

Say yes Elly. He's interested in you. Look at his face. Make Eye Contact.

"Nah, I'm only heading up to Kettlebell. It's like half a mile. I have mace on my keychain." She flashed said keychain in reassurance and shouldered her bag. 

He looked a little deflated. "Nice meeting you. Keep the world safe from uncollated copies."

She laughed and slipped out the door, the chill immediately reminding her of what an idiot she was. Good job getting his number! This is why you're single. She scolded herself sharply all the way to the gym.

Because of her little detour, she'd missed her cardio class. It was a shame too, someone new had tried it, and from the way they staggered out after cool-down, she was pretty sure they'd been crying. She smirked to herself. A year ago, she'd been the poor schmuck limping out of class and vomiting in the gym bathroom, showering off sweat and tears. A year of hard work later, and she could damn near teach the class. She finished her run and noted her time, pleased to see she'd shaved a few seconds off her usual. Good enough for a short day. Time to head home.

One hour at this time of year is the difference between a thin crisp daylight and bitter darkness. The hairs at the back of her neck bristled from more than the cold. She was tired and sore, but it was everything she could do to keep from sprinting the last mile home. Breathe, she told herself. You're ok. You're ok. You're oh shit-

Something large snatched her and dragged her into the bowels of a narrow alley. Panic exploded immediately as the safety of the pale street telescoped away from her. She screamed, loud and hard, and kicked backwards at her assailants knee. He, it? Gave a saurin yelp as something jumped in front to smack her face. She caught something scaley in her mouth and bit, dragging her nails over some limb. She slammed herself backwards, banging the one behind her against the bricks. She screamed again and kicked harder, knocking the thing off of her and getting a glimpse in the dim alley shadow.

It wore the wife beater and cargo pants of one of the thugs from earlier, but it wasn't a man anymore. Its face was all teeth, split wide red mouth nearly all the way through, hard black scales covered its neck and arms. She was still screaming, digging in her pocket for her mace. It launched itself at her again, its hands ending in long daggerish claws. She sprayed the mace at its face, but it had no effect. It tackled her, pinning her on the frozen concrete, smacking her head and bruising her ribs. She twisted and kicked, trying to get away as it raised its arm behind it in a windup for a hard blow.

Vaguely she heard a cool, gleeful voice purr, "Hi." Something hot and wet sprayed her face, and a firm hand grabbed her arm and held her steady.

"Ok. Stay calm. You're safe. You're safe." She gasped for breath and stared in horror up at Green Tea, his hand on her arm, his other holding a slim, dripping red sword. She hurriedly tried to wipe away the liquid from her face. Her hands came away bright red. She looked around her feet. The body, half the train wreck thug from earlier, half something else, was missing the top part of its head. It writhed and thrashed wildly for a few moments before slowly growing still. Larry turned towards her as she scrambled to her feet.

"OH MY GOD! OH GOD!" She punched Larry square in the face, which mostly just hurt her hand and earned her a surprised look. He held up his hand, half to keep her from hitting him again, "It's ok! Relax! Shhh, shhhhh, it's ok, it's ok, breathe. It's me, Larry."

She pointed at one of the bodies, communicating as best as she could that she had just been attacked by a genuine bonafide real life monster and she was most certainly not ok. "Larry. From the coffee shop. From Laurentum? Oh forget it." She backed up against the wall, wildly looking for a way around him. "Hey, Hey! I'm not going to hurt you!" He waved the sword in the direction of the headless body, that appeared to be slowly melting into a thick red mush. "They're the bad guys."

"You just! Oh god! You.." He took a step towards her, and she shrieked. He gave an annoyed sigh and sheepishly nudged the decomposing pile his toe. "These aren't even people. I promise. Yeesh, you kill a few demons and everyone loses their shit." She threw her hands in the air. She was shaking hard. She wanted, desperately, to throw up. She wiped the tears from her face and saw the blood again. She felt woozy.  Ok! Ok. Come on." He draped an arm firmly around her shoulders, his body solid and warm, wicking away the cold. She was crying. She couldn't stop. "Let's get you home. Do you live around here?" He grimaced at her splattered face and coat. "You probably want a shower." He guided her out of the alley.

As soon as she hit street light, the world suddenly felt real again. She sucked in a hard breath of the icy air. He was too close, and the sword casually dangled from his other hand, still dripping with red sludge. She punched him sharply in the ribs, backing him off of her. "Stop! We need to call the cops! Or something! I don't even know you!"

"Or something." He had the beleaguered look of waiter in the weeds, his shoulders slightly slumped with a mild annoyance. Obviously, this sort of thing was an average Monday for him. "Nah, I don't think so. They're not even human. It'll just freak people out. What do we say? Officer, this red goop tried to kill my new friend? So many questions. So few answers." He shook his head, and reached out to take hold of her arm again. She slapped his hand away, harder this time. "Please stop hitting me." They stared at each other in a standoff for a few seconds, before Elly burst into deep, terrified sobs.

"Ok. Home now." This time he rested his arm more gently around her shoulder. She shuddered. She should be running, screaming, using mace, something. Instead, she leaned into him, the blood on her face smudging his nice peacoat. "I'll tell you all about it. It's not all that bad. I promise."

Vaguely, she noticed that he smelled like trees, like the deep and precious woods upstate, of long walks and quiet fresh air. She sniffled against his coat, and on shaking knees let him walk her home.


End file.
